The Russians and the Estonians as Others to Finnish people. Case studies and developing of research methods.
Doctoral thesis, S.sc.
University of Tampere, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication 2004
This work discusses the representations of otherness in Finnish culture, and it is based on three case studies. The first case deals with Russianism in the Finns interviews performed in 1989. The second case discusses how Estonians were presented in Finnish media texts in connection with the sinking of the ferry Estonia in autumn 1994. The theme of the third case study is ethnicity and especially Russianism in Finnish newspapers in 1999-2000.
Throughout the work, there are two parallel narratives: First is the representation of otherness in the texts under review, and the second is how this otherness and its connection to Finnish cultural memory could be studied. Methodologically, constructive thinking, the idea of the dialogic nature of language and the context-bound meanings cover all the case studies. The methods comprise quantitative analysis of survey questionnaires, content analysis, and qualitative analysis of the rhetoric features in interviews and media texts. All three cases touch upon the theme of otherness, and all three are related to the formation of Finnish identity. Focus is on how the cultural speech habits connected to Russianism, Estonianism and ethnic minorities are reproduced in interviews and in the contents of media texts.
The result of the analysis of the interviews dealing with Rus-sians (Chapter 3) was the appearance of different ­ even contradictory ­ cultural thought models in speech acts made by one and the same person. The analysis showed that the Finns speech acts about Russians were not consistently rejective or positive towards Russians but context-bound: Positive and negative comments about Russians could appear in the speech acts of one and the same person. Depending on the theme of the conversation and the interaction situation one could distinguish the friendship code related to the official relations between Finland and Russia, and everyday code that appears in citizens normal speech acts. Fear and hatred against Russians, discussed in historical part, did not come out as an own opinion by any of the interviewees. In some extent, the fear and repulsion of Russians could be seen when the interviewees commented other people s speeches and their attitudes towards Russians.
The fourth chapter discusses the actualization of Finns thought models on Estonians in connection of the sinking of the ferry Estonia in autumn 1994. Characteristic for the relationship between Finns and Estonians has, since the 19th century, been the notion of Estonia as a more backward country than Finland: the Finns have regarded Estonians paternalistically through a big brother/little brother lens. When Estonia was a part of the Soviet Union Finn s attitudes towards Estonians were twofold: on the one hand they were Russians, on the other hand, they were seen as distant cousins . Estonians were simultaneously part of them and us.
This multifaceted and contradictory relationship between Finland and Estonia became apparent with the sinking of the ferry Estonia in September 1994. The analysis of chapter four shows how the media built a coherent story of the causes of the accident out of dispersed elements in a situation where the authorities and experts were reluctant to comment on the causes of the disaster. The effort of news journalism towards a condensed and coherent story produced, during the first stages of the accident, a point of view which put the blame on the Estonians, even though the journalists constructing this story may have consciously tried to avoid making premature judgments about the Estonians.
The third case study (Chapter 5) is based on the results of a research project at Tampere University where the occurrences of ethnicity and racism in the Finnish media from 1999 through 2000 were analyzed. Special attention is given to the means of expression, and mutual interaction between Finns and Russians in the newspaper articles. With few exceptions, the otherness of Russians in news articles was not constructed through negative labeling or by presenting stereotypes. But Finnish journalism in relation to the Russian people was structurally distorted. The distortions arise at least partially from the journalistic routines: the hegemony of the sources of authority that are easily obtainable, the monologic nature of articles, the tendency to write more on crime than on other, potentially more positive themes.
The Russians were, in the majority of the articles, mainly objects. Typical for the articles dealing with Russians was the monologic nature of the texts: different actors appeared in different stories, and encounters and interaction between Russians and the majority population was very limited. In many articles, the visual interaction was more important than the verbal dia-logue in positioning Russians in an us and them frame-work.